Bone in feet. Oil in tuns. 1 1½ 2 3 3 3½ 4 4 5 4½ 6 5½ 7 7 8 9 9 11 10 13 11 16 12 20 “The blubber of a sucker,” Mr. Scoresby observes, “when very young, frequently contains little or no oil, but only a kind of milky fluid; in which case, when the animal is deprived of life, the body sinks to the bottom, as also does the blubber when separated from it; while the body and blubber of larger individuals always swim. Though the preceding statement be exceedingly near the truth, yet exceptions occur; for I have known a whale of 2½ feet bone produce 10 tuns of oil, and one of 12 feet bone estimated at only 9 tuns; but such instances are much rarer than to see one of 2½ feet bone produce 4 or five tuns of oil.” The _Balæna mysticetus_, according to Marten and other North Sea voyagers, feeds chiefly upon a species of _vermes_, called _Clio limacina_, or Sea May Fly,[24] which are found in surprising numbers throughout the Arctic seas. According to Fabricius, the principal food of the whale consists of two different species of sea insects;[25] while Linnæus maintains that they live chiefly on the _Medusa capillata_, or sea blubber. This last substance, commonly called by Greenlandmen _whale’s meat_, resembles frog-spawn, and is frequently seen floating on the surface of the Northern seas. [24] Phipps, p. 195. [25] _Cancer pedatus et oculatus._ Faun. Groenl. p. 33. Mr. Scoresby says, “that he has good reason to believe that the whale feeds chiefly, if not altogether, on the _squillæ_ or shrimp tribe; for, on examining the stomach of one of large size, nothing else was found in it; they were about half an inch long, semi-transparent, and of a pale red colour.--I also found a great quantity in the mouth of another, having been apparently vomited by it. When the whale feeds, it swims with considerable velocity under water, with its mouth wide open; the water enters by the fore part, but is poured out again at the sides, and the food is entangled and sifted as it were by the whalebone, which does not allow any thing to escape.” Their time of parturition is in April, and though they are said to bring forth two young ones at a time,[26] yet I never saw more than one along with such as we killed. Fabricius says, that, for the most part, they bring forth but one.[27] The female is frequently taken when endeavouring to save her young one, which is generally killed first by way of stratagem. She then strives to take it away under her fins; but, in the midst of these efforts, being overtaken by the boats, she falls a victim to her maternal affection. [26] Br. Zool. Edit. 1769, vol. iii. p. 37. [27] Faun. Groenl. loc. cit.